


The Toughest Milkweed on Planet Earth

by Superstition_hockey



Series: Witchering Pays but Botany Doesn't [4]
Category: Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Geralt's delicate Witcher nose, Kissing, M/M, Metropolitan monarch butterfly habitat endeavors, Witcher Senses
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-15
Updated: 2020-07-15
Packaged: 2021-03-04 22:40:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,643
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25284031
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Superstition_hockey/pseuds/Superstition_hockey
Summary: “I’m sorry, does your shirt say ‘Plant milkweed or get fucked’?”Geralt looks down at his shirt to check.“Milkweed is the larval food source for monarch butterflies,” he answers, a little defensively.
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion
Series: Witchering Pays but Botany Doesn't [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1666258
Comments: 64
Kudos: 460





	The Toughest Milkweed on Planet Earth

“Oh, shit,” Jaskier says, “oh, shit, you’re a Witcher.”

And then, before Geralt can decide whether he wants to respond or not. Or just… leave. Maybe. Jaskier. Julian. Dandelion? _squints_ at him, big blue eyes narrowing, and says, “I’m sorry, does your shirt say ‘Plant milkweed or _get fucked_ ’?”

Geralt looks down at his shirt to check. 

“Milkweed is the larval food source for monarch butterflies,” he answers, a little defensively. 

“Oh, no. I’m definitely not complaining. I’m into it.” 

Geralt stares at him. “You’re into milkweed?” 

“Apparently,” Dandelion answers, voice a little funny. 

A concert venue, like this, is full of everyone’s scents from the night. A thousand overlapping smells, of bodies, spilled drinks, smoke and perfume and sweat, even after the people have left the place empty. Dandelion’s skin is warmed from the stage lights and the collar of his shirt is open and it’s not hard for Geralt’s witcher nose to smell him even from a few feet away.

He smells like the salt of his sweat. He smells like someone else’s tobacco smoke, standing close enough for it to get in his hair. He smells like he drinks too many Monster energy drinks. He smells like lust. Hot and wanting.

Geralt does not know what to say to that, but he feels like maybe he shouldn’t have come. He doesn’t have anything to say to a baby-faced rockstar. He should have stayed in and done what he was planning on doing tonight: lose all his small bills to Iris and her vicious spy-deck. He doesn’t know why he came here.

“So,” Jaskier forges on blithely despite Geralt’s lack of response, “we always go for pancakes after a show. You should come with.” And then he just… takes Geralt’s hand and starts _pulling_ him. 

Geralt orders an omelette. It’s good. Jaskier sits next to him, squeezed up next to him, thigh to thigh, to make room for the band’s pretty, dark-haired bassist on the rest of the booth seat, and blatantly steals Geralt’s homefries. 

Jaskier seems content to talk enough for both of him and his bandmates are full of invasive questions that fill the time: 

What did Geralt think of the show? It was good.  
Do Geralt’s eyes sting if the light is too bright? No.  
Does he still have two swords?

Geralt grunts, and apparently that’s not a good enough answer because Jaskier _looks at him_ , all big stupid eyes and messy hair and his fingers brush against Geralt’s elbow and Geralt says, “I still have swords. The steel one’s more ceremonial these days, been decades since I had to use it.” 

A table full of half-drunk 20-somethings with ketchup on their fingers stare at him, enraptured. 

Jaskier says, “ _Decades???_ ,” like he’s realizing “centuries” would have been a more expected time frame to discuss death by sword in a Denny's.

Geralt shrugs again. 

“But you don’t really kill monsters these days,” one of them says, “right? Like I saw a thing… on like…. Uhhhh National Geographic? Or something. So like, what do you use the silver one for? Wouldn’t it be the other way around?”

Someone elbows the kid in the ribs, and says, “Well, the steel one’s for killing _humans_ , dipshit, so I think he’s probably got less use for that.”

“Whatever, Ami, jeez.” 

Geralt sighs. “Witchering’s kind of a two part gig these days. Mostly, with post-conjunction species, we’re involved in conservation and ecology efforts. But, uh… people haven’t gotten any better about not making ghosts or wraiths, so.” 

“Bummer, brah," says a lanky drummer with a terrible beard. 

Geralt snorts, and doesn’t stop Jaskier from stealing a piece of toast. 

A few more people arrive, loud and jarring, and instead of pulling up a table, they pile into the already crowded booth, pushing and laughing and flopping all over each other like puppies, until Jaskier’s, somehow, sitting in Geralt’s lap. 

"Hello there," he says, squirming on Geralt's lap. 

Geralt sighs and lets his fingers tighten around Jaskier’s hips. 

The thing is -- Geralt has actually been around long enough to know when someone is into him. He knows Jaskier wants him. But he doesn’t exactly know _what_ he wants him for -- if it was just because he was a Witcher, he’d get it. But Jaskier’s been… interested… since long before he knew _who_ Geralt was and somehow Jaskier was interested when Geralt was just an outlandish accent, a pair of forearms, and a large amount of botanical knowledge. 

And he’s not sure what he wants, himself, either. To fuck him, sure. Who wouldn’t want to? But Geralt’s old, and in general finds fucking people for no othe reason than they’re pretty has a tendency to make messes and get complicated. Maybe not for some people, but Geralt’s got a knack for it that way. That… had taken him a few more centuries to learn. But bringing someone new into your life, because you _like_ them, that gets messy and complicated too. 

Geralt meets new people all the time -- people come and go, and Geralt passes through them, but in general, his circle stays full of generally the same old few, drifting away and back to each other again through the years. Why make new friends when you can talk to the same old assholes you’ve known since before the Nilfgaardian Empire existed. 

Geralt gives in to the impulse and tucks his nose against Jaskier’s shoulder. Lets himself breathe in the scent of him. Deodorant, laundry detergent, skin, sweat, someone else’s cigarettes, caffeine, the faintest intimate scent of a woman -- days old but still lingering at the edges of his skin, pickles from something he ate for lunch. Lust - thick and present and blooming in the warmth of their skin where they meet. 

“Fuck,” Geralt thinks and lets himself want.

Jaskier and his friends tip 400% and sign a napkin for their waitress. Jaskier wiggles under Geralt’s arm and drags him along out the sidedoor and Geralt says, “I’m not fucking you by a dumpster behind a Denny’s” and Jaskier laughs and says “why not.” 

“Because it stinks.” Geralt says. 

“Alright, what about the back of a tour bus.” 

Geralt lifts an eyebrow. 

“Oh alright,” Jaskier laughs at him, “I guess to your delicate Witcher nose that probably stinks too.” 

“We can go back to mine.” Geralt offers and they walk, shoulders bumping into each other, through the streets of Novigrad at night. 

When the floating red lanterns of the Passilora come into view at the end of the street, Jaskier says, “Oh! The Passi… Oh! Yes. Well. Brothels! Of course… Well that’s fine! I’m very sexually adventurous! I’m sure whatever you had…”

Geralt snorts. 

“Ladies!” Jaskier smiles when they walk through the door. “Aren’t you lovely. Oh yes, of course I’ll sign an autograph. Let me just get my Sharpie. Oh, yes, alright, one selfie, and then my lovely friend and I have… Oh--it appears I’m being dragged away by my churlish companion, sorry darling.”

Geralt herds him up the stairs before some sort of _queue_ starts and then guides him towards the little back service staircase that leads up to the Witcher garrett. “Oh this is… you really mean you have a room here, not like you buy a room…”

Geralt grunts, unlocking the service stair. “Witchers and whores are old allies.” 

“Huh,” Jaskier says, looking around Geralt’s room. “Why is that? Two oldest professions? This is the most remarkably unexpected room. Look at the bookshelf!” 

“Because we both expect to be paid for work strangers for some reason expect us to do for free. Come here.” 

Jaskier is suddenly so close. Big blue eyes and the sweaty ends of his hair brushing his forehead. “You should kiss me,” he says. 

Geralt kisses the side of his mouth, just the corner. A teasing glance, and then laughing at the pout on Jaskier’s face, reaches around him for the latch out to the balcony. “Come on,” he says, “hope you’re not afraid of heights.” 

The balcony is small and tidy, and the best part of it is how you can climb up onto the roof. 

“Oh!” Jaskier says, and Geralt pulls him up next to him, lying on their backs on the clay tiles, touching side to side. “Oh my goddess, Geralt, look at the lights.” 

The night air smells faintly like some of the famous night-blooming flowers growing in the gardens below, but more strongly, it smells like milkweed - heady, sweet summer spice, planted in pots in Geralt’s balcony and in pots all along the flat parts of the roof, and in all the back corners of the garden where its overrunning into the alleys and side paths. The floating lights of the enchanted lanterns, the lights of the city, of the harbor, there’s too much light-pollution to see the stars, but here, he doesn’t even mind. Jaskier looks lost in it, eyes big with the wonder. “This is gorgeous,” he whispers and then Geralt does kiss him, soft against his lips, and then dragging his mouth to his neck, to the salt taste of his skin. 

They kiss for a long while, and then settle back against each other. “I’m not sure what you want,” Geralt says because in 900 years he’s almost learned to talk about these things. 

Jaskier fingers are curled around his. He kisses Geralt’s shoulder and says, “I don’t know. I don’t know, I just… everything in my life moves so fast. All the things you see, I never see. I want to see them. All the back, out of the way corners of places, outside of cities, that I never go to, I want…. I want to be your friend. I want to talk to you, I want to hear all the things you have to say, I want to kiss you some more.” 

“Hmm,” Geralt says, “alright.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to dangercupcake for editing my commas. Title is a reference to the Youtube channel. Don't post to other sites.


End file.
